Australian Property

CoreLogic has released its preliminary auction report, which reported another soft auction clearance rate on very weak volumes.

By Leith van Onselen Strata Communities Australia and the Greens have called on the federal government to pay for the upfront cost of removing flammable cladding from apartment buildings.

By Leith van Onselen Australia’s chief property cheerleader, Highrise Harry Triguboff, has penned the following contradictory attack on Labor’s negative gearing policy in the Daily Telegraph [my emphasis] The proposed policy of removing negative gearing is based on the need to reduce house values while at the same time generating more government income.

Via Martin North: We have released the April 2019 edition of our confidence index, based on our rolling 52,000 household survey. The index fell again, to an all time low. All wealth segments declined (even those without a mortgage), but those leveraged up are really concerned now.

By Leith van Onselen The Canberra Times reports that the ACT Government considered implementing a “building defects fund” in 2010 to prevent shoddy construction work across the capital.

It is not easy to keep up with the madness, via HSBC’s Bloxo: “We expect the housing market to stabilise by the second half of 2019.

Via the ABC comes fear and lot’s of it: A new crackdown on property lending has emerged in the wake of the Banking Royal Commission, with borrowers now being asked for deposits of up to 30 per cent and banks throwing greater scrutiny on location and living expenses when assessing loans.

Via The Australian comes further snippets of ASIC versus Westpac on responsible lending standards yesterday: Jeremy Clarke SC, for ASIC, argued that from 2011 to 2015 Westpac didn’t make an adequate assessment of customers’ ability to repay mortgages when they changed from interest-only to principal and interest.

By Leith van Onselen CoreLogic has released its Quarterly Housing Market Review, which provides a depressed snapshot of Australia’s housing market.

Never talk down the market for your own drivel: Real Estate Institute property taxation campaign a resounding success   The public awareness campaign against property taxation has succeeded in its objective, according to the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA).

By Leith van Onselen The revolt against Sydney’s break-neck population growth and declining liveability last year forced the NSW Government to postpone plans to force councils to take on more infill development.

Here’s the chart now down 89.5% There’s no news.

By Leith van Onselen A panicked NSW Government has hit-out at the federal Labor Party’s negative gearing reforms, claiming it would reduce the state’s stamp duty receipts by between 0.8% and 1.3%.

Via Fitch today: Housing Downturn Fears Escalate:Within the space of a year, falling house prices have risen to be the most serious threat to Australian credit markets, according to Australian fixed-income investors.

Via Martin North: Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) has released the April 2019 mortgage stress and default analysis update.

Via the AIG: In my experience this PMI is a much better guide to residential than it is commercial ore engineering work.